Text of Bin Laden Fatwah - published February 23, 1998
Things cooled until Operation Desert Fox - December 16-19, 1998
December 24, 1998
In an interview with Time Magazine, Bin Laden asserted that acquiring weapons of any type was a Muslim “religious duty.” When asked whether he was seeking to obtain chemical or nuclear weapons, Bin Laden replied, “Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so.” He responded similarly to the same question in an ABC News interview two days later, stating, “If I seek to acquire such weapons, this is a religious duty. How we use them is up to us.”
The Al-Watan al-Arabi source stated that Bin Laden’s team of scientists was composed of “five nuclear scientists from Turkmenistan,” and that the leader of the team “used to work on the atomic reactor of Iraq before it was destroyed by Israel in the 1980’s.” The same source also stated that the scientists were working to develop a nuclear reactor that could be used “to transform the fissionable material into a more active source, one which can produce a fission reaction from a very small amount of material and be placed in a package smaller than a backpack.” In addition, the source stated that Bin Laden had hired “hundreds of atomic scientists” from the former Soviet Union. Reportedly, Bin Laden paid the scientists $2,000 per month, an amount much greater than their wages in the former Soviet republics. Source
Reference to this article in the 9-11 Commission Report. (pg 488)
Footnote 93 ABC News interview,"Terror Suspect: An Interview with Osama Bin Laden," December 22, 1998 conducted in Afghanistan by ABC News producer Rahimullah Yousafsai).
US Strikes Afghanistan and Sudan - Clinton: U.S. strikes against terrorist bases in Afghanistan and a facility in Sudan are part of "a long, ongoing struggle between freedom and fanaticism." August 20, 1998
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